


One Is the Loneliest Number

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-25
Updated: 2011-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 01:52:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean investigate the mystery of the missing socks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Is the Loneliest Number

**Author's Note:**

> For Dean's birthday. Thanks to Angelgazing for encouraging this silliness and looking it over.

Dean dumps the contents of his duffel onto the bed and starts rifling through his clothes. They're clean, for once, and they smell of bleach and detergent instead of sweat and blood and fire.

"Are you actually folding your clothes?" Sam asks, looking up from the laptop, eyebrows raised in astonishment.

"I don't understand how I have an odd number of socks," Dean says, ignoring the substance of Sam's question, because clearly, _obviously_ , he is not folding his clothes. He is dumping them on the bed and looking for socks. "It makes no sense. They come in pairs. I wear them in pairs. I wash them in pairs. And yet, every time I do laundry, I end up with singles."

"How can you even tell?" Sam says. He twists in the chair, resting his elbow on the back of it, and cocks his head in curiosity, stupid sincere expression on his face.

"Simple mathematics!" Dean knows Sam doesn't care about his socks--he never has before--but he can't keep himself from ranting. "Because I went to the laundromat with seven pairs of socks, Sam. That is fourteen individual socks. And yet I came home with only thirteen individual socks. That is six pairs and one lonely, single sock."

Sam shrugs. "Can't you pair it with any of the other lonely, single socks you've accumulated over the years?"

"I could, if they weren't being used as rags, but that's not the point."

"It's not? Wait--rags? We've been cleaning the guns with your dirty socks?"

"With my clean yet lonely socks, Sam. Try to keep up!" Dean huffs in exasperation. "The point is, there has to be some nefarious monster, some vicious, malicious, sock-eating _demon_ out there. It's the only explanation."

"Not the only explanation."

"The _only_ explanation, Sam! And do you know what this means?"

"We have to hunt it down and kill it?"

On the one hand, Dean loves it when he and Sam are on the same page. On the other, he hates it when Sam steals his thunder, and that's on top of mocking his completely valid and rational theory of sock-eating monsters infesting laundromats across the country. Still, he can't help himself from repeating, "We have to hunt it down and kill it!"

*

Dean doesn't enjoy research, but that doesn't mean he isn't good at it. He can put a file together with the best of them, because he was taught by the best of them. He scours the newspapers and the internet for mysterious occurrences involving laundry until he finds something that fits his admittedly bizarre and yet completely true theory.

"You don't really think that the Clothes To You laundromat chain is a front for sock-eating demons, do you?" Sam asks, tipping his head sideways against the window and eyeing Dean skeptically from under his too-long bangs.

"First of all, the name is a play on the title of a _Carpenters_ song, Sam. I think that's proof enough of demonic origins."

Sam makes a scoffing sound. "Just because you can't resist singing along to 'Top of the World' whenever you hear it doesn't mean demons are involved."

"I think you'll find that it does."

But the first three places come up clean--nothing but the heavy, humid smell of wet clothes and detergent and change machines that never have enough quarters. No sulfur, no black eyes, not even any ectoplasm or any bumps in the night that can't be explained by dryers that haven't been weighted right.

Dean is almost ready to give up on his beloved theory when they pull up to the fourth Clothes To You franchise in the greater Lexington area. He sighs loudly and Sam pats him on the shoulder.

"It's okay, Dean. I don't think anything could have ever topped the suicidal teddy bear, anyway."

"Shut up." He gets out of the car and pulls the EMF meter out of his pocket. Sam follows with the duffel bag full of weapons and a second duffel that wasn't part of the plan as far as Dean knows. "What's that?"

Sam hefts the bag easily. "I figured I might as well get some laundry done."

Dean makes a disapproving noise in the back of his throat but lets it go.

The place is open 24/7 and there's an old guy in the corner pulling dry grey underwear out of the dryer and shoving more wet grey underwear in.

The EMF meter buzzes fitfully at first, then squeals loud enough to hurt Dean's ears when they hit the detergent vending machine. Sam pumps it full of their limited supply of quarters and buys an overpriced bottle of Wisk and a bottle of--

"Oh, hell, no, Sam. You did not spend my hard-earned money on a bottle of freaking Snuggle fabric softener."

Sam snorts. "You mean that hard-earned money you stole from the coinstar machine in Walgreens?"

"Hey, breaking into one of those machines ain't easy."

"Yeah, you're a real credit to criminals everywhere."

Dean answers with his middle finger. Anything else he's going to say is lost in the shrieking of the EMF meter when it gets close to the old man in the corner. Up close, Dean can see he's not a man at all--he appears to be made of lint, tiny random wads of tissue, and knots of hair that look like spiders.

"Sam, am I going crazy or is this guy made out of the stuff in the dryer lint trap?"

"Do you seriously expect me to answer that?" Sam turns from where he's loading his clothes into a washer. "Holy crap, Dean, that guy is made of lint."

"No, Sam, he's made of all the missing socks from dryers all over the world." He pockets the EMF meter and cocks his shotgun. "Give me one reason I shouldn't pump you full of rock salt."

"You can cut me down, but another will quickly take my place. We are legion," the thing says, and it really does sound like the freaking Snuggle bear. Dean shoots it on principle. The lint parts around the bullet, which hits a washer and dents it. Rock salt sprays everywhere. The sock-monster isn't even fazed. "A sock here, a sock there--you'd be surprised how quickly they add up. You'll never stop us. " It starts laughing maniacally, sending chills down Dean's spine. At this point, he'd actually prefer the Carpenters.

"Not so fast there, fuzzy," Sam says, squirting it with lighter fluid and tossing a lit match at it. It goes up in flames, still cackling, and then disintegrates, leaving behind the nasty smell of dirty socks.

Dean takes quick shallow breaths until they get back out into the fresh air. "I'm not one to say I told you so, but I totally told you so."

"So, let me get this straight." Even after everything they've seen over the years, Sam still sounds surprised. "There's a worldwide network of supernatural creatures building themselves bodies out of socks?"

That's one of the strangest sentences Dean's ever heard, which is really saying something. "That's what it looks like."

Sam shakes his head in disbelief. "No one is ever going to believe this one." He laughs incredulously. "Our lives are weird, man."

"You got that right." Dean pulls out the car keys and jangles them. "Let's get the hell out of here."

"Not until my laundry is done."

"You're really gonna do your laundry in this place?" Dean might never do laundry again.

Sam shrugs. "We killed the sock monster thing, and I'm running out of underwear."

Dean snorts but lets it slide. Sam will do whatever he wants to. He always does. "Fine, but don't blame me when you're short a sock or two."

end

~*~

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] One Is The Loneliest Number](https://archiveofourown.org/works/678074) by [musesfool](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/musesfool), [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins)




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